The Populist Construct of Migration: Framing within SPD's Communication Strategy ahead of the 2019 European Elections

Abstract

Populism represents one of the major trends in contemporary politics across all European democracies. A key element in the success of populist parties is their communication strategy, with social networks that have become an ideal platform for populist political communication. Concerns about the success of populist groups marked also the recent European Parliamentary elections in May 2019. This also applies to the Czech Republic, where populist rhetoric is mainly represented by the Freedom and Direct Democracy party (SPD). The main objective of the article is to reveal how SPD is framing migration in the political communication on Facebook during the period of three months before the elections to the European Parliament. It mainly focuses on its content and form regarding the posts' visual elements and technical parameters. As migration was the main topic of populist political communication, special attention is paid to the communication regarding this phenomenon, incl. an analysis of selected frames and manipulation techniques in the SPD political communication. The result shows, that migration played the most important role but was communicated selectively and manipulatively. Only the negative effects of migration were emphasised, it was framed in connection with other negative phenomena (especially rape, crime, and terrorism) and illustrated by pictures of aggressive Muslims, emotions of fear, anger, and hatred were evoked among the supporters, which further contributed to the radicalisation and sustainability of the mobilisation of the electorate.